Nothing like starting your day off with a nice beatdown! Most importantly, shouts out to Poison Pen for making an appearance. If he’d hit the studio I’d be even happier!

Related posts:

1. Poison Pen Gets Swagnificent With M.O.P?
2. Poison Pen Gifts Blow
3. Poison Pen Comes to his Senses

No comment.

Related posts:

1. Poison Pen is a Rhyme-Slinging Genie
2. Poison Pen Knows What’s Good
3. Poison Pen Gives Blood to One-Street Hit-Wonder

What makes Chum so special that he gets his wishes granted and we don’t? Well, we never rubbed Pen’s lamp. Wait, that doesn’t sound right. Out.

Related posts:

1. Poison Pen Comes to his Senses
2. Poison Pen Takes Bromances to Another Level
3. Poison Pen Knows What’s Good

We’re left speechless with this one. Thankfully Alchemist isn’t:

Related posts:

1. Poison Pen Promises Sonic Ejaculation on the Female Species With New Album
2. Word To Roc C and The Alchemist
3. Tracklist Review – Alchemist’s Chemical Warfare

You already know we’re harassing N.O.R.E. for all of our deep and burning questions. Yet that’s not enough guidance for us. That’s why we had to call on our yogi Poison Pen to drop some truth bombs on our ass. Here’s how it works – Pen emails us his words of wisdom and we print it exactly as he types it, thereby preserving the authenticity and delicacy of his sentiments. Enjoy. Oh, and go cop his new album The Money Shot.

Avoid “showcases” that claim to have reps from every record label on the planet at all costs. Especially if you have to sell tickets. 90% of them shits are scams.

Related posts:

1. Poison Pen’s Money Shots – Part 1
2. Poison Pen Convinces You to Cop The Money Shot
3. I Think Poison Pen Just Hit On Us !?!?

What’s beef? Beef is when you intentionally mess up mixes because Pen forgets to bring you a Frappucino. We’ll keep you updated on this situation to the best of our ability.

Related posts:

1. Poison Pen Not Grateful For Promotion, WeGoinIN Must Do Better
2. Poison Pen Knows What’s Good
3. Poison Pen Gives Blood to One-Street Hit-Wonder

You already know we’re harassing N.O.R.E. for all of our deep and burning questions. Yet that’s not enough guidance for us. That’s why we had to call on our yogi Poison Pen to drop some truth bombs on our ass. Here’s how it works – Pen emails us his words of wisdom and we print it exactly as he types it, thereby preserving the authenticity and delicacy of his sentiments. Enjoy. Oh, and go cop his new album The Money Shot.

2 Live Crew’s “Move Something” lp should be in the smithsonian. Right next to Fonzie’s jacket.

Related posts:

1. Poison Pen’s Money Shots – Part 2
2. I Think Poison Pen Just Hit On Us !?!?
3. Poison Pen Convinces You to Cop The Money Shot

We always knew Poison Pen was a generous guy. But damn, now he’s giving blood to the singer on 50 Cent’s “Riding Thru the Hood”? Dude has a heart of gold and veins of generosity.

Related posts:

1. I Think Poison Pen Just Hit On Us !?!?
2. Poison Pen Disses Librarians
3. Poison Pen Not Grateful For Promotion, WeGoinIN Must Do Better

‘Nuff said.

Related posts:

1. Poison Pen Gives Blood to One-Street Hit-Wonder
2. Poison Pen is a Rhyme-Slinging Genie
3. Poison Pen Takes Bromances to Another Level

Poison Pen – The Money Shot Preview from brian kayser on Vimeo.

Props to Ariel for having the dopest whiteboy headnod this side of these guys:

Related posts:

1. Poison Pen’s Money Shots – Part 1
2. Poison Pen’s Money Shots – Part 2
3. What Is Poison Pen Doing?

Poison Pen’s The Money Shot is really the only album you need to cop in August. I haven’t heard the Slaugterhouse album, but if I was down to my last $9.99, I know which album I’d be copping on iTunes.

Related posts:

1. Poison Pen Promises Sonic Ejaculation on the Female Species With New Album
2. Poison Pen Developing Negative Image from Album Title, Alchemist is Amazed

No related posts.

Poison Pen – Mobb Deep’s Blood Money

The last physical CD I purchased was Mobb Deep’s Blood Money. I was on the road for a month long tour and the adapter for my iPod wouldn’t play in the rental we had. We were in L.A. at Amoeba. I was tired of listening to the radio. That album pretty much knocked all the way through so I wasn’t that mad. I cop CDs all the time from artists at shows to support, but this was the last major purchase I made.

Chali 2na – Eminem’s Relapse

I was kind of mad that I bought it. Not because it was wack but because, to be perfectly honest, on some personal level shit, I thought that as dope as he is, he kind of stuck to the whole super-duper pill thing, extremely, I thought. It’s like damn-near every song he took a shot at it somehow. There was one or two songs where he addressed that aspect where I was like, ‘That’s what’s up right there!’ And then he had a couple of classic Eminem songs. Eminem has been a dude who’s been inconsistent. Most of the album he’s dope. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because he’s been gone or whatever, but there were a few on there where I thought it was dope and then there were a few I didn’t know about because I’ve had some family members go through the same thing and to hear him talk about it from a perspective of being witty and funny was kind of hard to swallow.

Lloyd Banks – Eminem’s Relapse

I don’t really buy a lot on the internet. Call me old-fashioned but I go to the record store and do that shit. The last album I bought was Relapse and the album before that was Jadakiss’ album. Who else did I buy? I still got the H.N.I.C. 2 in my car. I’m a big Prodigy fan. I listen to a lot of different things. I still gotta get Busta’s joint. I haven’t got back to the store yet but I’m going to go pick that up. I’m interested to hear what Dre’s album is going to sound like. I’m very interested in that. And Drake’s album also.

Related posts:

1. Jojo Pellegrino Doesn’t Believe In Banks, Haters

It takes a classy chick to follow Pen’s instructions. That being said, we’re doing all we can to make sure chicks get hit with a ton of money shots on August 4th. We just don’t want to be in the room when it happens.

Related posts:

1. I Think Poison Pen Just Hit On Us !?!?
2. Poison Pen Developing Negative Image from Album Title, Alchemist is Amazed
3. What Is Poison Pen Doing?

Why the hell is Poison Pen standing behind a fence getting his picture snapped? And why is there a wheatfield-looking growth taking place behind him? And why is he wearing old people glaucoma-type sunglasses? The best response here will get a free copy of The Money Shot courtesy of our good friend Poison Pen.

Related posts:

1. I Think Poison Pen Just Hit On Us !?!?
2. Poison Pen Not Grateful For Promotion, WeGoinIN Must Do Better
3. Poison Pen Gets Swagnificent With M.O.P?

Just ’cause Pen has the dance moves of a young Kris Kross doesn’t mean he won’t let his fist completely go in on your face.

And just so you know, fighting Pen is like:

Playing taps with a cactus

We’ll stick to playing taps with our hydrangeas and gardenias, thank you very much.

Poison Pen feat. Swave Sevah – Facebreaker

Related posts:

1. The Unofficial Poison Pen Dance Contest
2. Poison Pen Gets Swagnificent With M.O.P?
3. I Think Poison Pen Just Hit On Us !?!?

The first two bars a rapper spits on the first track of their debut album are probably the most important bars they’ll ever spit. That’s the split second when fans who just popped the CD on or clicked on the mp3 will decide if how they’re going to feel about said MC for the rest of their life. If you question the importance of this first impression, look no further than Chevy Chase in Animal Farm. He’s sitting at his typewriter, trying to write a novel, only he can’t get it started because he can’t think of a good way to open it. What happens to him? I don’t want to spoil it but let’s just say he doesn’t turn out to be the successful novelist he thinks he should be.

But let’s not use Chevy Chase as an example because there’s nothing worse than comedians who stop being funny. Vegas Vacation? Thank you very much.

Instead, let’s look to New York rappers and their first lines on their first official albums and see how they ended up.

“Rappers I monkey flip ‘em with the funky rhythm I be kickin
Musician, inflictin composition.”
-Nas, “NY State of Mind”

Yeah, that’ll work. Probably one of the most effective ways to verbally smash somebody. Monkey flipping as a result of kicking a funky rhythm? And you only needed one bar to say that? Hell yes.

“Remember back in the days, when n***** had waves/
Gazelle shades, and corn braids.”
-Notorious B.I.G., “Things Done Changed”

Looking back, I doubt B.I.G. realized how prophetic those words were. He was reminding people of where exactly things were because he was about to take them somewhere new, which is what he did on Ready to Die. Biggie was at the forefront of a new generation of rappers bringing in a new sound to the game (The LOX, Ruff Ryders, Jay-Z, etc.) and what better to do than look back before you’re catapulted into the future?

“Yo, I’m makin’ short term goals, when the weather folds/
Just put away the leathers and put ice on the gold.”
-Jay-Z, “Can’t Knock the Hustle”

Whenever you step into a room, especially when you’re expected, it’s good to let the people know exactly what’s on your mind and where you’re going. Jay lets you know right off the bat that not only is he not playing around but he’s got a plan, albeit many short term goals, and he’s gonna do it with style, even if the leathers have to be put away.

“N***** know who dope yo, shit the flow is wretched/
And my G too futuristic for you hoes to catch it.”
-Ja Rule, “We Here Now”

Well, the flow actually ended being quite wretched to the point where fans couldn’t stand it any longer. And the G actually wasn’t that futuristic because some guy named Curtis caught it all right, took it for himself and then used it to destroy Ja. Dude got destroyed by his own G!

“Yo…what you thought punk, shit was sweet, now you can’t sleep/
Gotta keep ya eyes open wide and hide ya face from the streets”
-Big Pun, “Beware”

Wow. Pun came out the gate very, very hard on Capital Punishment and it was a wrap from there. If that’s the only, only thing he ever did in his short life, he’d still be considered one of the greatest. If you weren’t on Rios’ side and you were the punk who thought shit was sweet, I feel pretty bad for you. It would take most rappers a whole album to son somebody as effectively as Pun did with two bars.

“What’s with the melodrama?/
Fellas wanna hover in my cypher like a helicopter”
-Talib Kweli, “Move Somethin’”

Kwa got his post-Black Star career off to a rolling start with this couplet over Hi-Tek’s hypnotic horns. It also sets the stage for Kweli to be that guy that raps a lot about rappers. Battle lines are nice, but if it’s the first thing you’re gonna say, you better come with the heat. Knock ‘em out like Pun or Nas, don’t half-step comparing guys who want to be around you to a helicopter hovering above land. This kind of passive-aggressiveness is not gonna win you any points with the hardcore heads and it’s just gonna keep the weirdos following you around out of hope they get another shout out on your next album. These stale battle rap couplets are good enough for the “I don’t like rap but I like Talib Kweli and Mos Def” fans, but it’s not gonna fly for the real heads and that’s a huge reason why despite Kweli’s popularity today, he’s by far not a very sought-out feature when it comes to big time collabs and remixes.

“They say I walk around like got a ‘S’ on my chest/
Nah, that’s a semi-auto, and a vest on my chest.”
-50 Cent, “What Up Gangsta”

To say 50′s first album, Get Rich or Die Trying, was mildly successful is like saying Pam Anderson had a decent rack. This album secured 50 as a hip-hop/pop mainstay and gave him the path to become the mogul that he is today. These first two bars are all about 50 addressing people’s perception of him and describing how he actually is, which is basically all he does now. You peep his new project War Angel? It’s filled with lines about 50 describing himself. It seems like that’s all he does now and he’s not really doing it as creatively as he used to. Saying other people compare you to Superman but all you really have is a gun and bulletproof vest is pretty risky. It’s just too bad he got comfy and safe after his first album.

I think I’ve proven my point, which is that the first two bars an MC spits on their debut album are pretty damn important. We could go on and on and look at Cam, DMX, Jada and all the Golden Era MCs just to reinforce the point, but this isn’t a column about who spit the best two bars on the first song of their first album. This is about the importance of coming hard right out the gate and how those two lines will dictate the direction your career is going to take.

We on the same page? Cool.

Now we go on to Poison Pen, one of my favorite rappers in the game and the best journaler in the game (sorry, J-Zone and Rhymefest, but Pen’s got this shit on lock). His debut album The Money Shot is finally dropping this summer and Fatboy P was gracious enough to send me an advance copy of the joint without the snippets or overdubs. I got it like that! Hell, I could just post the intro along with all the songs featuring Immortal Technique (there’s only one, suckas), but that wouldn’t really be too difficult. Instead I’m gonna break down my thoughts about the album until it drops and use The Money Shot as a framework for writing about all sorts of random shit I wouldn’t normally be motivated to write about.

Sorry, I got a little off track. Back to The Money Shot. Let’s go straight to the first two words on Pen’s intro track:

“I’m a barbarian, you’s a librarian/
I’m the foulest out, aurora borealis mouth.”

Pen comes straight with a self-esteem shot, as he claims to be barbaric in nature while we’re content with filing books according to the Dewey Decimal System. It’s not that we don’t enjoy shelving books, it’s just that we don’t really want to be doing that when the only other alternative is being a barbarian. And Pen may need his barbaric credentials checked, ’cause the last time I checked, barbarians don’t rhyme words with “librarian,” much less know what exactly it is that a librarian does. For argument’s sake, let’s just assume that Pen is one of the top barbarians in his group and that it is possible for some barbarians to put together coherent rhymes.

Pen then says he’s the foulest out. A shot at his former group Foul Play? Probably not, but as a member of the media, it’s my job to start controversy where there is none and I have to take that part of my job very seriously. Pen then says he has an aurora borealis mouth. Great, now Pen is a foul barbarian who emanates light when he speaks.

At this point Pen has painted himself as a derelict adept at rapping, which is pretty much exactly how he is in real life. Although he’s not as big of a derelict today as he used to be, he’s still got it in his blood and probably always will, which is exactly how we want our Poison Pen. We don’t want him putting on some designer clothes or quietly slipping into the back of the diner. We want him barging through the front door in a vomit-stained white tee demanding the finest flapjacks (and crepes, if possible) east of the Mississippi.

If we have to look at Pen’s first two bars on The Money Shot as a precursor to his career, it’s tough to really say where it’s going to go because Pen’s being true to himself. Yes, he can be a barbarian on the mic. Yes, we are all librarians. Yes, he is the foulest out. Yes, he does spit light shows from his mouth. When it comes down to it, those are some larger than life lines from a larger than life persona, but the main problem Pen’s had is getting everyone aware of who he is. There was a time when the only site that would support him was HHG and I’d like to think that with the journals he wrote on the site, that helped other people become aware of him and other writers to take him seriously as an artist worth paying attention to. Either way, I’m glad Poison Pen is getting more support now and after hearing the full version of The Money Shot, I can confidently say that it’s a great listen. Just don’t ask me whether or not fans want a foul, librarian-dissing barbarian spitting out light.

In case you slept through astronomy like I did:

Related posts:

1. What Is Poison Pen Doing?
2. Poison Pen Comes to his Senses
3. Poison Pen Has Competition

Always good to shout out Buff, but come on, Pen, stop using your weight as a crutch in your rhymes.

Related posts:

1. I Think Poison Pen Just Hit On Us !?!?
2. Poison Pen Comes to his Senses
3. Poison Pen Not Grateful For Promotion, WeGoinIN Must Do Better

Two joints from Poison Pen, an untitled freestyle featuring Donny Goines and a second freestyle called “Pen Does The Body Good.”

Seriously, is Pen hitting on us with a freestyle called “Pen Does The Body Good?” Oh well, The Money Shot drops August 4th. Cop that!

Poison Pen feat. Donny Goines- “Untitled Freestyle”

Poison Pen- “Pen Does The Body Good”